Guest #1 November 14, 2003 You might think this is unimportant and doesn't affect you, but if you read this month's Wired Magazine, you might change your mind. This is more than just a business dispute. It's a clash of cultures and of ideas - it's about society itself. Many people, not just developers, are affected by hush-hush policies. Right now, if you even speak publicly about data encryption, you risk being sued, or even arrested. Researchers are muzzled by non-disclosure agreements to the point where they can't make their findings available for peer review. This defeats the entire purpose of the scientific method, in the name of the almighty dollar. This is wasteful and inefficient. It's one thing to protect the creator of a product and enable said creator to profit from the work by issuing a patent, but it's gotten to the point where lawsuits are made just because somebody else happened to have the same simple idea. Patents were made to protect physical objects, not intangibles like software. mh"The mouse does not know life until it is in the mouth of the cat." Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
